The present invention relates to spray nozzles and to methods of making spray nozzles and especially to a polymer spray nozzle having components to produce a range of nozzle sizes without having to produce molds for each particular size and shape.
In the past, a great variety of sprinklers have been utilized for watering or irrigation purposes, and typically, sprinkler heads are attached to water lines which may be under the earth or above the earth for directing the water from the water lines in a predetermined pattern to sprinkle an area of the earth's surface. One type of irrigation equipment that is becoming common has a central irrigation pipe connected to a central well and pump which is mounted on wheels and extends out across a field. The wheels may have electric motors or other means for moving the wheels to move the irrigation pipe, which is then rotated around a segment of a farm to irrigate a large area. The irrigation pipe typically would have sprinkler heads of some type attached to the top thereof, for spraying the water from the irrigation pipe as it moves over a circular area. Such irrigation pipes have used various types of sprinkler heads. One common type being a flat, spray nozzle such as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 2,503,671, to Wahlin, which teaches a flat spray nozzle made of brass, and molded into one piece for deflecting water in a flat spray pattern to cover an area being sprayed. This type of spray nozzle's principal advantage is in being simple and inexpensive when compared to more complex sprinklers, and accordingly, has fewer parts to malfunction. One problem with such sprinklers in irrigation systems is that the water being pumped through the irrigation pipes is not well filtered and contains small bits of sand and grit, which have been found to wear the brass surface at a rapid rate. The present invention is directed towards a spray nozzle producing a flat spray which is made of a polymer material and thus provides a surface which acts partially as a solid lubricant and having some small amount of resilience and which has been shown to outlast brass spray nozzles by as much as several times. One disadvantage of the spray nozzles such as taught in the Wahlin patent is that a great variety of nozzles having different orifices as well as a variety of curved, deflector surfaces requires a large inventory of sizes and models to provide the correct nozzle for different purposes and different sized systems. The present system is directed towards a spray nozzle that produces a flat spray, but which is made of a polymer and which is assembled from several components which can be adapted from other types of sprinkler components and has interchangeable parts in which different size orifices and different size curved deflector surfaces can be assembled to provide a variety of spray nozzles without having to have a large number of expensive molds and without having to supply a large number of different size nozzles to meet different requirements.